‘Huh! These mind doctors, like Friend Janissary, haven’t patented psychology and mental hygiene, have they? I guess Ben Franklin and Voltaire and Dickens must have known something!’

‘Father, you wouldn’t think I was too rude . . .’

‘Prob’ly would!’

‘ . . . if I pointed out that you’re not Franklin or Voltaire? Honestly, the help a man like Dr. Janissary could give you in re-education, by constructive personal conferences . . .’

‘I don’t know the gent. Maybe he might re-educate me into being some kind of a tabby cat I wouldn’t want to be. Yes, there’s something I am getting well from, all right: from crawling along through life and being doped by routine. But Howard and you never thought that was a disease. You thought it was pretty convenient for you!’

‘Oh, Father, to talk like that — if Dr. Janissary heard you! — to make us out monsters . . .’

‘You’re not, of course. But neither am I. We’re just normal people, up to the oldest trick in the world: nagging your relatives for nagging you. I didn’t want to be rude, girl. But get right over this idea you can coax me out of my idea of turning myself from a Parent into a Human Being. Good night — uh — good morning!’

So Fred clumped up to bed, with the intention of lying awake to lick his parental wounds, and went to sleep blissfully and at once.

Belowstairs, Sara was still in the kitchen, vowing, ‘His idea of leaving us in the lurch — it’s insane — it’s beastly — and now I’ve got to do something about it!’

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Last updated Sunday, March 27, 2016 at 11:57

The Prodigal Parents, by Sinclair Lewis

Chapter 31

There is no way in which a normally stubborn husband can more fruitfully surprise and annoy his loved ones than by being a ‘good patient’, which means a man who brightly agrees with the family doctor even when the doctor isn’t sure that he agrees with himself.

Another technical phrase that goes along with ‘good patient’ is ‘worried about his health’, and it happened to Fredk Wm now that his wife decided to be worried about his health.

‘Don’t you think you ought to go to Dr. Kamerkink and have a general physical overhauling?’ she said, on a beautifully Saraless evening.

He had watched her nervously approaching this bold position by way of chatter about a respected neighbour who, at eighty-one, probably from gross over-use of coffee, alcohol, tobacco and attendance on baseball games, had astounded the community by popping off. So Fred was ready for the attack and able to be genial:

‘Why?’

‘Oh, no special reason. I just think everybody past fifty ought to look after his health.’

‘But not before fifty?’

‘Wellofcoursebutimean . . .’

‘My state of health been bothering anybody lately?’

‘No, but . . .’

‘Pains in the back, dizziness, sudden loss of memory, B.O., athlete’s foot? Do they laugh when I say I can speak French? Won’t my best friends tell me? Delusions of persecution? Violent and unexpected assault on man believed to be income-tax collector?’